didn’t need Ben to spell out that K and R stood for kidnap and ransom. Ben went on talking, and Boonzie listened carefully.
In the seven years since Ben had quit the army, locating and extracting victims of kidnapping, often children, had become his speciality. He’d called himself a Crisis Response Consultant – a deliberately vague euphemism for someone who went out and solved problems that lay way beyond the reach of normal law enforcement agencies. His work had taken him into a lot of dark corners. His methods hadn’t always been gentle, but he’d got results that few other people in his line of work could have achieved.
The bottom line, always, was helping those in need. After many successes and a few too many scrapes, he’d left the dangers of active field work behind to focus on passing on the skills and knowledge he’d acquired – still helping the innocent victims of ruthless criminals across the globe, but now doing it from behind a desk instead of from behind a gun.
The facility he’d set up, nestled in the Normandy countryside, was called Le Val. It had been growing busier by the month. Police and military units, hostage negotiation specialists, kidnap insurance execs, close-protection services personnel, had all flocked to attend the courses he ran there with his assistant, ex-SBS officer Jeff Dekker, and a couple of other ex-military guys. Dr Brooke Marcel, half French, half English, an expert psychologist based in London, had been his consultant and regular visiting lecturer in hostage psychology until – three months or so ago – their stumbling relationship had developed into something deeper.
In terms of the success of the business, Ben couldn’t have asked for more. Le Val was lucrative, it was filling a very real need, and it was safe.
But there was a problem. It had started as just a grain of discomfort, like a tiny niggling itch he couldn’t scratch. Through the long, hot summer, it had grown until it followed him like a shadow and he couldn’t sleep at night for thinking of it.
Why he felt this way, where the demons that were driving him so crazy with restlessness had come from, he had no idea. All he knew, with a certainty that frightened him, was that the life he’d created in France was one he no longer wanted.
Boonzie McCulloch was the first person he’d chosen to confess his secret to, and even after thinking about little else for days it wasn’t easy to do. When he’d finished outlining the work he and his team did at Le Val, he took a deep breath and came right out with it.
‘Thing is, I’m giving serious thought to leaving it all behind,’ he admitted with a frown. ‘I don’t mean I want to sell up. Just walk away, leave it in Jeff’s hands. He can run the place, no problem, with a little help from the other guys, and Brooke. And you, if you’re interested.’
Boonzie took a draw on his cigarette, said nothing. His eyes were narrowed to slits against the falling sun.
‘You were the best instructor I ever knew,’ Ben said. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have come and take over the number two position.’
‘What about you?’ Boonzie asked. ‘Where are you going?’
Ben was quiet for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what I want. Maybe I need some time to figure that out.’
‘Every man has to settle down sometime, Ben. It comes to us all.’
‘I don’t know if I’m the settling kind. God knows I’ve tried. Just doesn’t seem to work for me.’
‘You never were happy unless your arse was on fire,’ Boonzie chuckled, and then looked serious. ‘What about this Brooke lassie? Sounds like you and she have something going.’
Ben glanced down at his feet. ‘That’s what I thought, too,’ he muttered. ‘Sometimes I’m not so sure. For a while she’s been acting—’ His voice trailed off. He bit his lip.
‘What?’
Ben let out a long sigh. ‘Listen, I don’t want to lay my personal problems on you. What do you think about my offer? Is it something you’d ever consider?’
Boonzie didn’t reply. He thoughtfully stubbed out the butt of his cigarette on the belly of the upturned barrow.
Ben already knew the answer. He’d known it the moment he’d got here, and it had been so obvious and predictable that he almost hadn’t asked the question. So he wasn’t very surprised when after a few more moments’ deliberation, looking genuinely pained, Boonzie shook his head.
‘Flattered you should ask me …’
‘But no?’
‘That’s the way it has to be. I’m sorry, Ben.’
‘Say no more, old friend.’
‘Would you leave this?’
‘Not in my right mind, I wouldn’t.’ Ben stood up and dusted himself off.
‘No hard feelings, then?’ Boonzie said, concern in his eyes.
‘Don’t be daft. I’m happy for you.’
‘You’ll stay for dinner, though, aye? Be our guest for the night?’
‘Of course.’
Boonzie had been right about Mirella’s cooking. Dinner was a simple dish of tagliatelle mixed with a basil pesto sauce of the most vivid green, topped with grated parmesan and accompanied by a local wine. It was as far from fancy cuisine as you could get, but just about the best thing Ben had ever tasted and he ate a mound of it with relish under the chef’s approving gaze. As they sat up until late around the plain oak table in the small dining room, he almost managed to forget all the troubling thoughts that had been on his mind lately. Boonzie told stories, more wine was poured, the fresh night air breezed in through the open windows and the cicadas chirped outside. It was after one when Ben insisted on helping the couple clear up the dishes, and Mirella showed him up to the guest bedroom.
He was awake long before dawn, edgy and feeling the need to go for a run. He slipped out quietly and spent an hour jogging in the open countryside, pausing a while to watch the sunrise before returning to the house to shower and put on clean jeans and a light denim shirt over a navy T-shirt that said ‘TYRELL Genetic Replicants – More Human than Human’. A present from Brooke. She was a big Blade Runner fan. Ben hadn’t seen the movie.
Breakfast was in the kitchen, eggs laid that morning scrambled with butter and toast as Mirella fussed and Ben kept protesting that he’d had enough delicious food to last him a week.
‘No hard feelings,’ Boonzie said again, frowning at him over a steaming cup of espresso. ‘About what we discussed?’
‘None whatsoever, Archibald,’ Ben said.
‘Piss off. So where’s next? S’pose you’ll be heading back to France?’
Ben shook his head. ‘I have a flight booked from Rome to London tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Business trip?’
‘It’s a long story.’
Boonzie and Mirella waved as Ben climbed into the Shogun. He waved back, took a last glance at the tranquil haven they’d made their home and then drove off down the bumpy track towards the road.
Ben headed roughly south-southwest with the rising sun behind him, aiming more or less in the direction of Naples with the intention of veering slowly towards Italy’s west coast. From there, he’d follow the coastal road through a hundred seaside towns and villages until eventually he reached Rome.
For a man who’d been running this way and that for most of his life, always with a precisely calculated plan in mind, always battling the clock, it felt strange to be at something of a loose end. Strange, yet welcome too – because,